Related links:

Rosetta instruments

This picture shows two of the instruments on the Rosetta spacecraft. The instruments are colored gray in the picture.
These instruments are two of the cameras on Rosetta. NAC is the Narrow-Angle Camera. It takes pictures of objects when they are far away.
WAC is the Wide-Angle Camera. It takes pictures of objects when the spacecraft is very near them. Rosetta will use these instruments to study Comet
Churyumov-Gerasimenko.

You might also be interested in:

Comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko was discovered in 1969. It is named after the two scientists who found it, Klim Churyumov and Svetlana Gerasimenko. The comet goes around the Sun once every 6.57 years. The...more

The Rosetta lander has many instruments that it will use to make measurements when it lands on Comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko. The instruments carried by the lander are listed lower on this page. The instruments...more

Comet Hale-Bopp was one of the brightest comets of all time. Astronomers witnessed the comet spew out intermittent bursts of dust. The surface seemed to be an incredibly dynamic place, with 'vents' being...more

Six spacecraft flew to Halley's comet in 1986. There were two spacecraft launched from Japan, named Suisei and Sakigake, and two from the Soviet Union, named Vega 1 & 2. One spacecraft, ICE, was from the...more

Astronomers have noticed a group of comets which they call the Jupiter Family of Comets. This family of comets is to be found circling between Jupiter and the sun, as shown in this picture. The comets...more

Scientists have learned a great deal from the crash of comet Shoemaker-Levy 9. Scientists traced the orbit of the comet backwards in time to guess its origin. The crash of a comet like Shoemaker-Levy 9...more

Mathematical theory suggests that comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 was likely a short-period comet which was captured into orbit around Jupiter in 1929. This orbit ended with a collision of the comet with Jupiter...more